San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones listens while Mai Elsberry provides public comment during a City Council meeting in San Antonio on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026. The City Council voted on its fiscal year 2027 budget and approved its first tax rate hike in over 30 years.
Katina Zentz/San Antonio Express-News
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones on Tuesday pitched a “framework” for the city’s next bond package that would keep its size modest and would set aside most of the money for projects in San Antonio’s poorer districts.
Jones made her proposal in a memo, her preferred means of communicating with City Council and City Manager Erik Walsh, days after Walsh recommended that council put a $442 million bond package on the May 2027 ballot. That’s the amount of debt the city could issue without having to raise the property tax rate.
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“I continue to believe that any amount requiring a property tax increase will fail at the ballot,” Jones wrote. “Having just raised property taxes, combined with the economic conditions facing our community, I believe we should be moderately conservative.”
The council voted 7-4 on Sept. 17 to adopt a new city budget that comes with a 3.9% property tax hike — the first rate increase in more than three decades. Jones joined Council members Marina Alderete Gavito, Misty Spears and Marc Whyte in voting against it.
Jones, Alderete Gavito and Whyte were again in the minority last week in wanting to go with Walsh’s proposal. Spears was absent from the Sept. 30 special council meeting.
Other members suggested going with a $1 billion bond given the city’s infrastructure needs, even though it would require another take hike. City officials also want the council to consider raising the stormwater rate (which appears on residents’ water bill) over a five-year period to fund drainage projects.
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Jones was not immediately available for comment.
In her memo, she pitched devoting $75 million of a $442 million bond package to affordable housing initiatives.
Eighty-five percent of the remaining $367 million — $312 million — would be split among Council Districts 1 through 5 because they “have historically been underinvested in,” she wrote.
By that, she meant that the districts spanning the East, West and South sides have received less city infrastructure spending than the wealthier North Side.
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The $55 million left over would be divided among Districts 6 through 10, according to her suggested bond framework.
Absent from the mayor’s proposal is using bond dollars to fund $35 million worth of roadway improvements around the planned Spurs arena at Hemisfair. The city’s bond program is the funding source city officials have long eyed to pay for infrastructure to support the arena.
Jones wrote that bond money should not pay for any projects that could be funded by one of two special taxing zones: one that lets the city tap state hotel tax revenue to be used on the arena, convention center or Alamodome, and another that collects city property taxes to encourage private investment.
She also opposes giving bond dollars to “outside agencies” — that is, nonprofits and developers that are seeking bond money to pay for projects.
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District 8 Councilwoman Ivalis Meza Gonzalez sent out a news release opposing the mayor’s suggestions.
“A citywide bond should give residents across San Antonio confidence that their priorities have been considered and their needs fairly evaluated,” the Northwest Side councilwoman said. “Predetermining that 85% of available funding will go to half the city before individual projects have been fully evaluated makes that difficult and is not a framework I can support as currently presented.”
She said the city should convene a bond committee to evaluate the $5.8 billion worth of projects that city officials, council members, nonprofit leaders and developers have identified.
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The mayor and council will meet Oct. 14 for another bond briefing from city officials. Jones said in her memo that “we aim to finalize the bond amount by next week.” It’s unclear whether she is referring to city officials or to the mayor’s office.
City spokeswoman Mia Garza-White said “staff will be looking for further direction from City Council regarding project priorities, bond amount and other related topics to move the Bond program forward for a May election.”